“1984” was a dystopian novel written by George Orwell written in 1949. It tells the story about overreaching government in the person of “Big Brother”. It is a surveillance state, where your every movement is under observation (sound familiar?) and you are told what to do, what to think, and how to live by the government.
There is a mantra given by the government which goes:
"War is Peace / Freedom is Slavery / Ignorance is Strength"
We have had this pernicious redefinition of words going on for some time.
A baby is a “clump of cells”
A man is actually a woman.
A marriage can be two men or two women.
That brings us to the Orwellian named “Respect for Marriage Act”.
This bill provides statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages.
Specifically, the bill repeals and replaces provisions that define, for purposes of federal law, marriage as between a man and a woman and spouse as a person of the opposite sex with provisions that recognize any marriage that is valid under state law. (The Supreme Court held that the current provisions were unconstitutional in United States v. Windsor in 2013.)
The bill also repeals and replaces provisions that do not require states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states with provisions that prohibit the denial of full faith and credit or any right or claim relating to out-of-state marriages on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. (The Supreme Court held that state laws barring same-sex marriages were unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015; the Court held that state laws barring interracial marriages were unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia in 1967.) The bill allows the Department of Justice to bring a civil action and establishes a private right of action for violations.
So what this bill attempts to do, is codify Obergefell v. Hodges into federal law.
So why, with the problems we’re having with the war in Ukraine, gas prices, inflation, crime, etc. is congress concentrating on this solution searching for a problem?
Very simply, the Democrats saw what happened with Dobbs v. Jackson leading to the overturning of the Roe v. Wade, and Doe v. Bolton decisions. The Dobbs decision basically said that abortion is not the business of the federal government, and under the 10th amendment, was the purview of the states.
This sets up a domino situation for all the rest of the laws that were inappropriately decided such as the famous Obergefell v. Hodges. Abortion is not included in the 18 enumerated powers in the Constitution that were granted to the federal government by the “several” sovereign states. Neither is marriage. So the Democrats, in their infinite stupidity, rather than leave this alone, they decided to try and pass what is clearly an unconstitutional law under 1st, 10th and 14th amendment grounds.
The Nature of Marriage
Marriage has predated all known religions and governments. Even the ancient tribes figured out that for their societies to proper in peace, sexual activity between men and women needed to be regulated. This was for a number of reason among them:
Children. Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman has the potential to produce children. This will increase the size of the tribe.
Those children need to be raised to become good and productive members of the tribe. This is accomplished through an extended family or clan. The mother and father of the children bear the responsibility for doing that.
Tribal acknowledgment of the permanent, exclusive bond between that man and that woman. No other man was supposed to pursue that woman and no other woman was supposed to pursue that man.
Regulating sexual activity. No sex was supposed to occur except between a husband and wife. This means no premarital sex and no post-marital sex with someone other than your spouse.
Love has nothing to do with it. Up until recently, marriages were arranged. In most cases you came to love your spouse. But marriage was used to cement alliances between countries, and families for thousands of years.
Gay relationships have none of this benefit to society, the most prominent of which is allowing our species to continue. Sure, two gay guys can “rent a womb”, two lesbians can get artificially inseminated, but in the final analysis, sex between two men or two women is sterile.
The Problem with Obergefell
Proponents of Obergefell v. Hodges claimed that this would simply allow same sex couples the same rights to get married as any other couple. The 14th Amendment (equal protection under the law) was quoted, but gay people have always had the right to get married. They just needed to find an adult, not close enough by blood, of the opposite sex who would have them. However, what they wanted was to “marry” someone of the same sex, which for known human history has been simply ludicrous. What Obergefell did was by judicial fiat, changed the definition of marriage to include same sex couples. By redefining it, they made it mean everything and nothing. If a man can marry a man, why can’t a man marry two women, or two men. Why can’t a man marry his daughter or his beloved German shepherd? Why can’t someone marry a child?
The slippery slope is real. We’re seeing it in the news.
The Simplest Solution
The claim that is always made (not the true motivation) is that gays and lesbians simply want the same legal rights as married couples. I agree with that too. Since civil marriage is a legal contract, the simplest thing to do would be to create a contract called a “domestic partnership” or a “civil union” and get rid of civil marriage. These contracts would have the same legal rights and responsibilities including survivorship, visitation, filing taxes jointly, etc.
They would not be required to get married. So if you wanted, you could be:
Married + Civil Union
Married
Civil Union
Neither
The state would not be involved in when my Church administers a sacrament. If you wanted the state benefits, get a civil union. If you don’t, don’t. Seems elegant to me.
But the “gay community” would have none of this, because their goal wasn’t simply to get the same legal benefits as married couples. Their goal was to have their relationships have the same dignity as a marriage. They simply don’t.
How Does Our (Gay) “Marriage” Affect You?
And this was the question we were asked. But in 25 years, I have watched the Gay Rights Activists go from libertarian (“please don’t arrest us for sodomy”) to totalitarian (“bake the fucking cake or we will destroy you!”).
Jack Phillips became the face of “how their marriage affects us”. Two gay guys who had been long time customers of Phillips’ bakery, the Masterpiece Cake Shop, asked him to bake a cake for their wedding. In good conscience, Phillips could not do this because it would involve him participating in a charade, a pretend mockery of a wedding.
Rather than simply say “okay” and find another baker more amenable, they decided to sue him on “human rights” grounds1. This started the suing of flower shops, bridal stores, wedding venues, photographers, and basically anyone involved in the wedding business.
So now this new law wants to codify gay marriage, and appears to have some protections for religious freedom, but not really. We have seen what these people do, and we should expect a flood of lawsuits for those who preach against sodomy in their churches, who refuse to perform gay “weddings” and generally push back against the libertine sexual culture of our age.
Conflating Gay “Marriage” and Interracial Marriage
This law purports to protect both gay “marriage” and interracial marriage2. They are purposely conflating them because they are not the same. Interracial marriage is already protected under the 14th amendment. Gay marriage is not because it does not meet the 5,000 year criteria for marriage. It also puts out the proposition that someone is trying to get rid of interracial marriage. Nobody is trying to do that. This is a red herring.
Nobody has a “human right” to the fruits of another’s labor.
Marriage is not in quotes for interracial marriage because regardless of race, one is a man and one is a woman.